General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Free At Last... FREE AT LAST... Thank MIRT Almighty... I'm Free At Last... [View all]Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)but didn't have the patience to post.
Judging content by its source is a very RW thing to do, anyway. They train themselves to think in terms of who said something, not whether it was true or valid. They look for people to "trust" and once trusted, then by definition, whatever that source tells them is true. It can be ludicrous nonsense, and they will still insist that it's true because it has been defined as true by their standards. This is why they don't have to care about facts or reality. They don't have to bother to think, and they like that.
I look at it this way: if the worst person in the world made a true statement, would it still be a true statement? And if that true statement is opposed and/or discarded because of who said it, then where does that leave us? It leaves us pretty much where the RW is, with truth by popularity or "trust rating" (based on nothing, usually a "feeling" , where meaning has left the building.
I'm not suggesting that we should have a flood of crap sources here, I'm advocating for developing the judgment to evaluate content on its own. Even people who are good at that kind of judgment can always develop better. It's something that should be exercised, all the time. I thought that was a large part of the purpose of this site -- for people to consider things, and decide what they think. Yes, considering the source is one element in judging content, but it is only that -- one element, a beginning point.
People try to categorize other people, and they try to categorize facts/ideas the same way, and it just isn't applicable to either. It's lazy, and it isn't valid.